Voice 123 Auditions
One of the new business models that the internet has made possible is what is known as the “Pay to Play” voice over casting website. Traditionally, a voice actor would pursue representation with an agent who would submit that actor for projects. If the actor was cast, the agent would take a 10% commission of the actor’s salary as compensation. Agents are not paid ahead of time, they only make money when the actor makes money.
Pay to Play sites work differently. You pay the website a fee to get access to auditions. They give you space on their site to create a profile where you can post your demo and contact information. Then, you get access to auditions from producers who post their projects on the website. I have yet to try any Pay to Play sites so I don’t know what it’s like working with them first hand. My agent keeps me pretty busy so I haven’t explored that avenue yet. I’ve heard from other voice actors who have tried these sites that they can sometimes be a bit of a meat market with hundreds if not thousand of voice actors all competing for the same projects. However, this blog post caught my eye.
It’s a promotional blog post from Voice123, one of the larger Pay to Play sites. The post is called, Voice Overs Never Cease to Amaze Me. The post is designed to promote the ease of hiring their talent to those producers who are interested in using their service.
However, the most interesting part of the post to me is not the video of the final project with voice over, but rather the fact that they posted all the auditions for the project on a separate page for everyone to listen to. Rarely do you get the chance to hear other actor’s auditions for a part. In fact, it’s considered very bad form to allow other actors to hear their competition’s auditions. Since this blog post is aimed at the producer, however, Voices123 thought it would be good to showcase the type of talent that would audition for a project posted on their site.
So take advantage of an opportunity that almost never happens in voice over, listen to the auditions of your competition. Imagine if you were the producer, which talent would you chose? Do you agree with their choice? Why do you think the producer chose the actor he did? How could you audition differently to stick out from your competition? It’s a wonderful window into the voice casting process.
An interesting find: All these voices are superb, but the ones which stand out the most(to me) are those where each take has a different delivery. Most of them follow the same inflection patterns, i.e. “Old McDonald” syndrome. It’s a great wake-up call to really start finding new ways of delivering the same lines.
Hi Crispin,
Thank you for posting this.
Opinions of video aside, I do think you touch on something important.
Many believe Voice123 can be a meat market, but the fact is, it is not true. There is a great wealth of talent out there, and they are great in their own way. … BUT most importantly, they wait for the best jobs before auditioning. This one was auditioned for heavily as it was posted by staff for a contest.
On average, jobs receive about 11 auditions each, so it is never “early bird gets the worm”.
All the best,
Steven
Voice123 Community Manager
This reminds me of what changed the game of chess back in Fischer’s time. One of the things that set him so far above the rest of the competition was that he had the novel idea to start collecting and studying his opponents game. Up until that point it had never been done and now everyone does it and there are giant databases containing nearly every tournament game ever played.
Your blog and your podcast are excellent. I found them very clear and useful. I’m from Mexico and I can’t take your classes. Do you have a book or an audio course?
Thank you! So glad you enjoy both of them!
I do not have a book or audio course… yet. I plan on having both in the future.
I also am trying to put together online classes as well. Once I have all of that in place, I will definitely announce it here on the site.
Thanks for your interest and thanks for listening!
Hello Mr. Freeman how’s your day going so far but i’m going ask that how did you came up with the use to make a new website? And why it’s purpose? Did you desire to make one like this someday when you became a voice actor? Or you just did this because you have to? I know it’s very confusing asking this but I hope you see to it that I actually care to know why? 🙂
Sincerely,
Angelican Marcos
I’m not sure I completely understand your question, but if you’re asking why I created this website, the answer is to help those around the world who are interested in voice acting. It’s been very satisfying for me to help my students here in California learn how to voice act. However, there are many people for whom it is not feasible to come to California to study with me. This podcast is to help those who cannot travel to take classes with me, as well as to supplement the studies of my California students.
This website grew out of so many people asking me questions about voice acting and my desire to help answer those questions.
Well that’s nice even though like I said it was confusing asking that but now I understand basically I should of figured it out earlier when I started taking your podcast lessons is when people who are not in the same state and that they’re very far away from don’t usually go to your classes so your doing to help others that are in different states need help to become a voice actor/actress like in your classes to a part of here in your podcast aren’t I correct? 🙂
I actually state why I started the podcast in the first episode of the podcast. I suggest you take another listen to it.
Yes, I started it to help people outside of California, but it’s also to help those in California as well.
Of course & I kind of figured you wanted me to listen to your first podcast & I know it’s for people in California as well i’m just asking it’s just… It’s just that well first i’m not very good with my grammar I usually rush especially when i’m nervous & my deepest apologies if I disturbed you in any occasion that you had & i’m sorry that I ask silly questions I wouldn’t be such a bother uh…
That’s all right. Luckily, you’re responding online in a written format so you can take as much time to compose your message as you’d like before you hit send. There’s no need to rush. Just relax and take your time.
Really? Well thank you Mr. Freeman as you can see that i’m a huge fan to you and to who you are like a person not much as a crazy fan who screams and shouts I love you and stuff like that i’m actually just an ordinary human being still trying to spread her wings who draws anime and manga and fanart mostly fanart of you by the way and i’m thankful that I still live unlike my mother who is not and mourn for her each night & day without her was a blessing and a curse but sometimes mylife is okay but I always get scared of pop-up videos, scary video games, scary movies, zombies, mummies, and ghosts which I don’t know why but you’ll kind of figure why a girl would be scared of such things that don’t exist but they always look so real I just can’t help it. It’s sort of like a temptation to know those creatures sometimes when I see the image once or more I wouldn’t be so scared of it anymore eheheh… I guess 🙂